Autoblog

EVO Magazine just released info (and pics) about that very special project from German Porsche tuner, 9ff. If 9ff sounds familiar, you may remember it as the company that has set a couple of street legal records with highly modified 911s. It appears they have given up on the 911's rear-engine configuration in favor of a custom vehicle with its engine mounted amidships. The new car is called the GT9 and uses some 911 componentry, but is really a unique project that looks somewhat like Porsche's own GT1. The idea is to use a 900+ hp 4.2 liter flat-six to outdo the Veyron's 253 mph top end. And they plan to do it at Nardo, the huge bowl–shaped test facility in southern Italy, which essentially means the vehicle will be in the turns the whole time. In case you were wondering, that generally results in a lower speed than on the 5.6 mile long straightaways at VW's Ehra-Lessien test track, the site of the Veyron's runs. The fight for supremacy in the supercar world is certainly getting heated.

American specialty manufacturer, SSC is currently going about that task in a slightly different way, and Koenigsegg and Saleen seem to have vehicles available that would also challenge these speeds, but 9ff has experience here, as well. They've already had a 911 go 241 with just 840 hp. Sorting out what kind of record this would be is a bit tricky. Tuners are generally separated from production cars, but specialty manufacturers can actually qualify as production vehicles, even if they sell far fewer cars than the tuners. If it's any consolation, 9ff says that it has already sold two of these GT9s before the first one was even built. Prices start at 400,000 euro, in case you were wondering, a pittance compared to the Bug's going rate. We'll be sure to let you know if and when the GT9 hits 409km/h, besting the Veyron's vmax.

[Source: EVO]